


where shadows lie

by Wildcard



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Angst, Incest, M/M, all the bad things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 03:02:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16864924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wildcard/pseuds/Wildcard
Summary: in the end, all lost boys come home.





	where shadows lie

“Twilight is the time of shadows,” Zed tells Shen, his mouth tracing the words over the pulse point of Shen’s throat. Under his teeth, his brother’s skin is ridged with scars like deep lines in bark. Salt and sweat mingle on Zed’s tongue, a heady cocktail that calls desire up to hum under his own skin.  
  
The prickle of want under his armor is maddening. Kusho told them about the death of a thousand cuts and Zed’s skin feels as if every pore has a needle spiked through it. It surprises him that Shen is not bleeding where Zed’s lips have caressed him, that there is no swell of crimson on those pale lips or that thick throat.  
  
“It was not such a crime to open the box.” There’s a whiny note in his voice that he hates but he cannot stop. He breathes instead, face tucked against the crook of Shen’s neck, inhaling the thick, musk-sweat scent of him and finding comfort in the faint, familiar reek of armor polish. “Twilight passes into shadow. Twilight becomes shadow. If you are to be the Eye of Twilight, why could I not be the Eye of Shadow?”  
  
He never wanted to serve Shen but he had always wanted to be his equal. He had thought he would be one of the Triumvirate but Akali is the Fist and that yordle is the  _Heart_  and that leaves no space for Zed. Not even in Shen’s heart; Shen had not protested his banishment.  
  
“ _Say something_ ,” he hisses, futile words beating against his brother’s patience like storm waves against a cliff. Thousands of years might wear down the cliff but they don’t have thousands of years. They are human, as mortal as the forces they serve as immortal.  
  
Shen’s steady gaze does not flinch under the hot, half-mad desperation in Zed’s eyes. Shen’s eyes are brown still, the rich brown of fertile soil, but Kusho’s ideas have been planted there and nothing Zed says will take hold. He tries anyway. He has to try. He always has to try when it comes to Shen. He tries to keep up, he tries to surpass and how, with his eyes locked on Shen’s as if he can force him to understand, he tries to make Shen  _understand_.  
  
“You cannot have Balance with Twilight alone. Dawn, day, twilight, night. A day is not only Twilight.” Twilight might be when the sun and moon are in balance but it is not the whole of the day. His logic is inescapable but Shen does not respond, just looks up at Zed unblinkingly.  
  
“You cannot,” Zed says, voice strained and tight the way it was when he was very young. “You  _cannot_.”  
  
It is the truth, as true as  _you cannot have life without death_  and Zed knew all along that this would end with one of them dead.  
  
He kisses Shen anyway and does not allow himself to weep. Not yet.


End file.
